The role of noble women in the enthronement of the first Sassanid kings (Case study: Šāpūrdoxtak, wife of Bahram II)

According to some contracts and testaments attributed to the Sassanid kings that have been reached to us by historians of the Islamic period, the process of choosing a king was done by the king himself. Another method was reported in Tansar's letter to Gošnasb, in which there were permanent associations for the selection of the king, whose duty was to select the successor after the death of the king, which included Mobadān Mobad, Mahasht's secretaries (Head of secretaries), and Sepāhbod Sepahbazān (Commander-in-Chief of the Army). Until the translation of the Shapur I inscription on Zoroaster's Ka’ba, our knowledge about the women of the Sassanid court was limited to the information we had through the narrations of historians of the Islamic period. By translating Shapur's inscription, new dimensions of power, through noble women and their influence on the issue of succession and legitimacy of the first Sassanid kings, appeared for the researchers. In this research, our effort is to open the third side in the power triangle of the Sassanid period, which was the influential women of the court, with a descriptive-analytical method. Therefore, the status of noble women in the court of Sassanid kings from Ardashir I to Narseh (224-302 AD) and the position of noble women in the coming to power of the kings of this dynasty will be examined. Our case study among these women is “Šāpūrdoxtak ", the Bahram II’ wife and Bahram III’ mother, who was most likely chosen as the crown prince of the Sassanid king for a while.